January 2009 Archives

Offended that our R/C Moon Phase Light lets you set it to display a waxing crescent when the moon is actually waning gibbous, hardware hacker Tim Farley gutted its electronics. After installing an open source Arduino microcontroller and a real-time clock, he loaded his moon with software that computes the actual lunar phase from the current time. Tim's moon now stays in sync with the one up in the sky.

Since our collective ego wasn't crushed quite enough for his satisfaction, Tim went on to code a utility that lets him plug his moon into his PC to set the clock, just in case the 17-year battery in the RTC wigs out. And he says he's "not even a competent hobbyist."

Tim's previous exploits include a stoplight that warns would-be visitors away from his office when his Mac detects that he's overloaded with work, an alarm clock that only goes off when someone's actually still in bed, and
modifying one of our pong video game kits to use a bongo board as its controller.

Hacked our stuff? Let us know about it! Mention it in the comments and email us details to blog@thinkgeek.com. We'll pick our favorite and the winner will get a $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate and the admiration of an infinite number of monkeys randomly soldering an infinite number of ICs onto an infinite number of experimentation boards.

It's a new year, and it's time to make resolutions that we won't stick to. But in the spirit of the season, we conducted an informal poll around the office to find out what the geeks' resolutions are.

Check out some of the resolutions of the monkeys here at TG:

improve introversion skills

switch from Braaaaiinnnnsss to Diet Braaaaiinnnnsss

use Jedi skills for good instead of evil

grow a moustache

remember to wear pants to the office

plunder

give keynote at next macworld

cold fusion

void resolve() { sleep( 365 * 86400 ); resolve(); };

Now how's that for some serious goal-setting? We strive for excellence here at ThinkGeek World Headquarters, and it shows in our resolutions, dontcha think? So what are your resolutions? Tell us in the comments!